Lingfield Course Guide

Lingfield Park Resort holds the distinction of being the only racecourse in the UK to stage racing of all three types – Flat Turf, Flat All-Weather and National Hunt. Established as a racecourse in 1890, ‘leafy’ Lingfield quickly became a popular venue due to its location close to the borders of Surrey, Sussex and Kent.

Principal races on the turf are the Derby and Oaks trials held in mid-May. The Derby Trial has been won in the past by future Derby winners April The Fifth, Mid-Day Sun, Tulyar, Parthia, Teenoso, Slip Anchor, Kahyasi and High-Rise while User Friendly, Lady Carla and Ramruma all went on to success in the Oaks.

Lingfield made history when staging the first all-weather fixture in 1989 and has been the UK’s premier all-weather track ever since, hosting the first All-Weather Championships Finals Day on Good Friday 2014 – a fixture which is now firmly part of the calendar.

Lingfield’s left-handed all-weather track is laid out inside the turf track and, measuring just less than a mile and a quarter round, is essentially sharp in nature. This, along with how the races often pan out ensures that stamina is rarely at a premium and strong-travelling types with a turn of foot are often favoured. For nearly half its length, the round course is flat, then rising to the summit of a slight hill after which there is a downhill turn to the straight. Lingfield replaced the original equitrack surface with polytrack in 2001. This was relaid in October 2012.

Lingfield’s 1m 2f all-weather start is a tough one, very draw-dependent. The same is true of the 5f and 6f starts. I always think it’s a track that lends itself to riding in the ‘third wave’. In races over 1m, for example, the first wave will go with maybe 5f left, round the initial turn, while the second wave will kick into the home straight. The third wave - the George Baker wave - usually attacks at the 1f pole and often comes out best. You don’t want to be way out of your ground, but patience can pay.

View from the saddle: Jason Weaver

Left handed. Round course is about a mile and a half in length, which intersects the straight, of seven furlongs and one hundred and forty yards, nearly half a mile out. The downhill turn into the straight means that those poaching an advantage at this point are hard to reel in. Essentially a sharp course, putting a premium on speed and adaptability, though the whole complexion of the course changes when the going becomes testing.

In my view, the bias in favour of those towards the stands’ rail on Lingfield’s turf track is one of the biggest in British racing. So, just as you’d take some Chester form with a pinch of salt, I think it’s wise to do the same for Lingfield. From a jockey’s angle, though, that can be an advantage if you’ve got the courage to sit and suffer near the fence, because plenty of horses lean away late-on, leaving a handy gap. Coming down the hill into the home straight can be tricky, so a balanced horse is a must.

View from the saddle: Jason Weaver

Left handed, undulating. Sharp in character on anything other than soft/heavy ground (though testing conditions do often prevail, and the track suffers more abandonments per meeting than any other jumps course), a handy position into the straight often paying dividends, especially over fences. Straightforward fences which have had a very low casualty rate over recent seasons. Bumper races usually run on the all-weather track nowadays; these are nearly always falsely-run affairs which count against stoutly-bred NH types.

It’s a shame that, sometimes, the ground at Lingfield gets very soft. Then, it’s a completely different track to ride in the back straight from how it rides in the home straight. The back straight can become really deep and boggy and, because of that, the fences there can ride very big. It’s a beautiful course in every other way, very fair, but, in winter, underfoot conditions can become extreme. The jumps course is not as undulating as the Flat track, but there are some ups and downs and it’s a decent test.